When He Fell
by la-rubinita
Summary: In which Dean mans up and does something about it. Mildly AU, set during season 6. Told in three parts, using prompts 28, 27, and 9 from grid 15 at spn 30snapshots over on LJ. Possibly beta'd by alchemynerd, but it was so long ago I honestly don't remember. Rated T for mild language and boys kissing.
1. Chapter 1

15.28 In Bobby's House

It was a nice day, the day Cas fell. It was mid-September, and the air was chilly but not cold, and the sun was just warm enough that jackets were only necessary if one was attempting to make a fashion statement. The sky was blue, blue like Cas' eyes, clear and intense and breathtaking.

Dean remembers the entire day in exquisite detail. He remembers he had pancakes and Irish coffee for breakfast. He remembers how Sam had pillow face, and how this stray cat had turned up, and wouldn't leave until Bobby fed it. It was black and white and scrawny as hell and it yowled incessantly, but Dean remembers feeling sorry for it. He was the one who told Bobby to just give it some damn milk already. Maybe add a splash of whiskey, and it could be a boozer like the rest of them.

He remembers being bored out of his fucking mind because it had been nearly two weeks since they'd caught wind of anything even remotely hunt-related. He'd cleaned every weapon twice already and Sam was starting to get pissy, so he'd gone wandering around the yard. By lunch, Dean had found an old '65 Corvair. The body was rusted and there was a crack the size of the San Andreas Fault in the engine block, but the frame was straight and the tranny looked all right. He figured if he was going to be stuck in fucking South Dakota for a while, he may as well make himself useful. Maybe if he fixed it up good enough, he could sell it. Corvairs rolled something awful, but they were still sharp looking, and there was probably some rich collector willing to drop a few grand on it somewhere.

He remembers trying very, very hard not to think about where Cas was and what he was doing because he was on the verge of driving himself mad with it all. He remembers chastising himself for pining like some lovesick teenager, especially since Cas was an _angel_ and Dean was so _damaged_ , and seriously, what the fuck? Dean remembers when 'thanks for pulling me out' turned into something more like brotherly love, but he must have missed the memo they sent out when brotherly love turned into _I need you._

He remembers hating himself for finally admitting that the only time he felt like he had a handle on his life was when Cas was around, even if they were fitting together like a square peg and a round hole lately. Bickering over stupid things was better than nothing, and sometimes Dean felt that if he didn't goad Cas into an argument the angel would disappear that much faster. He remembers hating how weak it made him feel, how vulnerable.

He also remembers hating Cas, just a little, for dropping off the face of the fucking planet.

Dean remembers how the setting sun had lit the roof of Bobby's house on fire as he returned for dinner. He remembers hoping Sam went for fried chicken like he said he might because he was starving.

He also remembers how, two sips into his second beer, there had been a flash of light out the window so bright that it lit the entire yard, followed by something crash landing on the roof with such force the whole house vibrated. The three of them had stared at each other for just a handful of heartbeats before rushing upstairs, grabbing weapons as they went: Sam the demon-killing knife, Bobby a pistol with silver bullets, and Dean a shotgun with salt rounds.

The hallway was wrecked, a hole in the ceiling straight through to the sky, and all the debris to fill it. Wood, plaster, insulation, floorboards and shingles, and lying in the middle was Cas, naked and bloody and entirely too still for Dean's liking.

Dean hadn't hesitated, not for one second, in going to him and flipping him over, nudity be damned. He had tried not to think about how cold the angel was when he wrapped an arm around his back, or the way Cas' blood clung to Dean's skin and clothes as he held him.

Stupidly, Dean had pressed two fingers to Cas' neck, searching for a pulse, but the second he'd found one he had frozen, utter disbelief welling up inside.

"Dean. _Dean._ Is he all right?" Sam had asked crouching next to them. Bobby had vanished, going for towels and bandages and whiskey.

Dean had spread a palm wide against Cas' pale chest, had felt the slight, unsteady rise and fall of his chest as his lungs filled with air, over and over again.

"He's breathing," Dean had croaked, reality washing over him.

"Okay," Sam had said, making his Reassuring Face. Dean hates that face. "That's a start. Let's get him to bed and-"

" _Sam,_ " Dean had insisted, something in his voice stilling his brother. "He's _breathing._ "

Sam's eyes had widened after a moment, and his jaw clenched.

"What the hell does an Angel of the Lord need with oxygen?" Bobby had snapped. He'd returned just in time to catch Dean's words.

"I don't think he's an angel anymore," Dean had said.

Bobby had made his Well, What the Hell Do We Do Now Face before gesturing toward the guest room. "Well, don't just sit there in the rubble like a couple of girls with mud on your shoes. Get him to the guest room so we can clean him up."

Dean remembers feeling relieved that Bobby was willing to take charge because Dean's brain had shut down and all he could do was stare at Cas' slack face like he could make him open his eyes with the power of his mind.

Dean had looked up, past the broken ceiling, past the ruined roof and into the clear autumn sky where a thousand stars stared coldly down at him and his fallen angel. He'd shivered.


	2. Chapter 2

15.27 In the Rain

It was a dark and stormy night when Cas finally woke up. It took the better part of a week, and it rained the entire time. A heavy, relentless, driving rain that had already flooded out parts of the state fell from foul grey-brown skies. Dean wondered if it was Heaven mourning their fallen soldier, or if he'd suddenly developed some sort of psychic mutant power, like Storm from the X-Men where the weather was subject to his moods. He wondered if he was going to have to learn to control those, too, on top of everything else. He wondered if he'd have to wear a cape because that would be decidedly uncool.

He wondered what had happened, if Cas' falling had anything to do with every monster in the country going into hiding. He'd wondered if Raphael had won.

Sam summoned Balthazar two days earlier, but Dean hadn't been up for his particular brand of smarmy and had opted to remain with Cas. Not that he ever strayed very far from his bedside. The thought of Cas waking up alone after whatever happened upstairs made Dean a little queasy.

Balthazar hadn't come.

"Do you think he fell, too?" Sam asked. "Or maybe he's dead? They are in the middle of a war up there."

"Or maybe he just got tired of you calling him all the time and found a way to block the spell," Dean snapped.

Sam glared but settled for watching Dean watch Castiel, like if he wasn't careful Dean might spontaneously become a statue where he sat. It made Dean fidgety.

Then the doorbell rang. Strange looks were exchanged, because Bobby rarely had visitors, and the ones he did were not usually of the knocking or doorbell-ringing variety. Bobby had gone to town anyway. He'd told Dean they were getting low on booze, but Dean had heard him tell Sam that he had to get out because Brooding, Sullen Dean was making his teeth hurt.

When they didn't respond, the caller began pounding on the door. Sam shrugged and left to answer it. Dean heard the front door creak open, and he certainly didn't miss his brother's surprised exclamation.

"Balthazar?"

"Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell me Castiel is here."

Sam must have replied in the affirmative because next Dean knew there were two sets of footsteps racing up the stairs. Dean stood, unconsciously placing himself between the two angels.

Balthazar froze in the doorway, sopping wet and dressed like he'd raided a lumberjack's clothesline. Or Bobby's hamper.

"Nice of you to turn up," Dean greeted coolly.

"Yes, well, _you_ hitchhike across half the country and see how quickly you get where you're going."

"So you—" Sam began.

"Fell. Yes. Only I don't have a pet human tying me to this God-forsaken planet, and landed in the middle of Fuck-Me Nowhere, Washington."

Without invitation, Balthazar shoved past Dean and knelt at Castiel's side. Only the unashamed sadness on his perennially irritated face stilled the snide remark lingering on Dean's tongue.

"Oh, Cassie," he whispered, "look what he did to you."

Dean suddenly felt like a brand new kind of douche. Balthazar may have treated them like gnats at a barbeque, but he was Castiel's brother, and Dean knew all about that kind of crap.

"Wait," Dean said after Balthazar's words had processed. He'd always just kind of assumed, well, he didn't know what he'd assumed, but never that Castiel had been _forced_ to fall. "Are you saying someone did this to Cas? Was it that dick, Raphael? I swear I'm going to set his ass on _fire._ "

"As amusing as your impotent rage is under normal circumstances, I believe we have more pressing matters."

Sam put a hand up in a placating gesture and shot Dean his Shut the Hell Up look. "Listen, Balthazar, we just want to know what happened. It's been three weeks without a single hunt anywhere in the country, and now we've got two fallen angels in our house, one of them unconscious. If we knew what was going on, maybe we could help."

Balthazar laughed, short and bitter as if he were saying 'And what can you do?' before snapping his jaw shut. He wasn't any more powerful than either of them, and it rankled.

"We were ambushed – betrayed, most likely, though there wasn't much time for inquiries."

"And?" Dean snapped.

"And Castiel was captured." Balthazar swallowed. "It would seem the lessons of hospitality were somewhat lost upon Raphael."

"Was Cas— was he tortured?" Sam asked.

The look on Balthazar's face was enough, and Dean's head spun.

"How long?"

"Dean—"

"How long was he—" _down there,_ he almost said. There was something about angel-on-angel torture that was freaking disturbing. "How long did Raphael have him?"

Balthazar looked… remorseful, which wasn't even something Dean knew Balthazar could pull off, and it only made the sick feeling in Dean's gut that much worse.

"Too long."

"How long is too long?" Dean insisted.

"Have you any idea how vast Heaven is, you feeble-minded swamp rat? We got to Castiel as quickly as we could. I _fell_ trying to rescue him, so don't you dare accuse me of—"

"No one's accusing you of anything, are we, Dean. _Dean_?" Sam interrupted.

Dean gritted his teeth, but let it go. "Of course not."

Balthazar sighed. "About two weeks, by your standards; though time passes differently upstairs."

Dean didn't want to know if it was faster or slower because two weeks was too much. Two minutes was too much, and he'd been sitting here in Bobby's house complaining that there weren't any creepy-crawlies to kill while Cas was upstairs getting ripped to pieces by his own brother.

"So, why did you-?" Sam stuttered. "I mean, what happened to—?"

"You mean: what am I doing here?" Balthazar drawled.

Sam tilted his head to the side and kind of half-shrugged. "Pretty much."

"Ingenious plan, really. Extracting information from Castiel was only part of it. He was bait. Raphael used him to lure as many of us rebels onto home-turf as possible, then ripped all our graces out."

"He can do that?" Dean said. "He should not be able to do that."

"You're preaching to the choir, sweetheart," Balthazar replied. "As your Southerners say."

"But how?" Sam asked.

"A spell. And not a very angelic one. I've never seen sigils like that before, and spells are my stock-and-trade."

"But what about Cas?" Sam said. "He's been unconscious for a week now, and short of bringing him to a hospital we've done everything we can."

Balthazar was silent for a long time, only occasionally breaking it to mumble to himself. Dean shot Sam a What the Hell look, and saw the same sentiment mirrored in his brother's eyes. At last, Balthazar made a funny, discontented sound in the back of his throat.

"What?" Dean said, not bothering to mask his eagerness. "Do you have something?"

"I may," Balthazar hedged. "But there's a pretty good chance you won't like it."

"Why not?" Sam asked.

"I'll do it," Dean said.

"Dean, we don't even know what it is."

"Doesn't matter. I'll do it." It was the least he could do. Hell, at least there was something _to_ do.

" _Dean_ —"

"I'm doing it. End of discussion, Sammy."

Sam stared long and hard at Dean, but Dean didn't back down.

"All right." Sam turned to Balthazar. "What do you need?"

Balthazar rattled off a list of ingredients to which Dean hardly paid any attention. Sam would get everything ready.

"And make sure you get something the rain won't wash away, because we'll probably need to do it outside. The sigil is a bit large."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

Sam left without another word, obviously still annoyed with Dean for being reckless.

Balthazar moved from his spot at Castiel's bedside and put himself directly in Dean's line of sight and stood there until Dean looked him in the eye. The effect of Balthazar's presence was somewhat diminished, though Dean could not honestly say if it was the fact that he hadn't any more juice or the ridiculous get-up he was sporting. The words that came out his mouth, though, were what kicked Dean in the stomach.

"Do you love him?"

"What?"

"Do you love him? I mean _really_ love him, because if you don't I'm not sure this will work."

Dean swallowed hard. "How do you mean?"

"It may sound like something out of a _Harry Potter_ book, but love is the most powerful force in the universe. It heals _everything_. One has only to find the proper application."

Dean just stared at Balthazar, because he'd rather eat his boots than answer him, one way or the other. He didn't want to know what the answer was, and wondered if _I need you_ and _I love you_ were even sort of the same thing.

"Bobby's got a barn at the back of the property. It's still all graffitied from the last time we used it, but the floor's clear. Draw me the sigil, and I'll get started."

Apparently, that was answer enough for Balthazar, because, for the first time since Dean met him, there were no scathing insults or annoyed rants. He just drew the sigil and turned back to his brother.

.

"What, like Sleeping Beauty?"

Sam snorted.

"The kiss seals the deal – okay, poor turn of phrase," Balthazar added hurriedly after taking one look at Sam's horrified face. "Think of it as… turning the key in that ridiculous car of yours."

"Hey!"

"You can build her from the ground up, over and over again, but until you turn the key, she's just a shiny piece of metal."

Dean wasn't big on metaphors, but he got it. They could do the spell until they were blue in the face, but unless Dean kissed Cas it would just be a waste of ingredients. And blood. Dean had already given a fair bit of it, and if he had to give any more he'd probably faint.

Sam looked at Dean and Dean shrugged. "Dude dragged me out of Hell. I'm pretty sure I can summon the courage to kiss him."

"You have to mean it, Dean," Balthazar said. "The damage Raphael caused is extensive, and without his Grace, Castiel is now wholly dependent up you figuring your shit out. He will. Not. Wake. Up if you don't mean it."

Dean definitely was not looking at Sam now, but he stared down that smarmy, British asshat, daring him to doubt his conviction. Because Dean had done a lot of thinking while he was painting up Bobby's barn, and even if _I need you_ and _I love you_ weren't exactly the same thing, whichever it was the funny tight feeling in his chest was stuck on would most definitely be enough. It had to be, he _willed_ it to be, and Dean Winchester had made a lot of things happen by force of will alone.

He could do this. _He could_.

"Just call me Prince Phillip."

.

Dean carried Castiel to the barn through the pouring rain. The weather had turned from steady rain to thunderstorms as soon as the sun set, the almost constant flashes of lightning illuminating the way far more effectively than the flashlights Bobby and Balthazar carried. Sam had his arms filled with a trash-bag-wrapped box of spell supplies, and while they walked, Dean tried to think more about the incantations and the knifework he was about to attempt and not how Castiel probably weighed one-fifty, soaking wet, which he was. The former angel – the _human_ , Dean reminded himself – had consumed little more than a few bowls of force-fed broth over the last week, and Jimmy Novak's naturally lean frame had dwindled down to scrawny.

If this didn't work, there was a good chance Cas would die; his frail human body would eventually fail him, even with medical treatment should they seek it, and Dean would be forced to bury another loved one.

Thunder crashed as the thought crossed his mind, and Dean stumbled as though he'd been struck a physical blow.

Fuck incantations; Dean spent the rest of the walk trying to breathe properly.

Dean laid Cas down in the middle of the sigil he'd spent half the afternoon drawing and knelt beside him. Sam, Bobby, and Balthazar went about setting everything up. Dean tried to make his hands stop shaking. When the others were finished, they stepped out of the circle and waited for Dean to begin.

He was grateful he'd drawn the sigils on his and Cas' palms with permanent marker, because between the tightness in his chest and trying to remember the words of the spell, Dean didn't think he'd have been able to complete the designs properly.

When he finished speaking, Dean laced their fingers together, palm to palm, and, with a deep breath, leaned forward and pressed his lips to Cas'. It was a chaste kiss, fitting for this fucked up version of the fairy tale, but Dean had never meant anything more in his entire life. There was a painful rush of all sorts of nameless, girly feelings, and when long fingers suddenly squeezed his, Dean thought he might actually cry.

Dean pulled back in time to see Cas' eyelids flutter open. He stared at Dean for a moment, obviously confused.

"Dean?"

Dean grinned and clapped a bloody hand to Cas' neck, his thumb brushing against the other man's jawline before he could stop himself.

"Welcome back, man," he said, his voice tight. "How'd you feel?"

Cas furrowed his brow. "I… I'm hungry."

Dean laughed. He felt like he could fly.


	3. Chapter 3

15.9 In the Yard

"I have done it again," Cas said, walking up behind Dean, who had his head beneath the hood of that Corvair he'd found.

"Dude, it's a coffee pot. Not nuclear physics."

"Indeed. Nuclear physics I understand."

Dean huffed a laugh, and when he finally turned around, Cas was a lot closer than he'd realized. Apparently becoming human had not endowed the former angel with a new understanding of personal space. In fact, Dean was beginning to think that the sneaky little shit was doing it on purpose, but he was a bit reluctant to go _there_. Dean's lack of comfort where matters of the heart were concerned and the fact that he'd actually kissed said fallen angel – kissed him and meant it – had become the elephant in the room, so Dean tried to spend most of his time outside. Elephants tended to fit better out there.

Cas wasn't really taking the hint, though. Dean shouldn't have been surprised. And, besides the fact that the coffee pot bested him nearly every morning, Dean thought Cas was really doing pretty well, all things considered. He was a little quieter than Dean remembered, but he wasn't ripping his hair out as he ran screaming through the yard or anything. Dean considered this a win.

Dean licked his suddenly dry lips and tried to ignore how Cas' eyes followed the motion.

"Come on," he said, clearing his throat and working his way around Cas, trying not to touch him. "I'll show you one more time."

.

Dean came in for dinner and found Balthazar alone in the kitchen, glaring at a glass of whiskey.

"I do wish you hillbillies would buy something a little more palatable than this rotgut with which you insist upon filling your cupboards. I'd kill for a good martini."

"Hey, when you get a job, you can buy whatever kind of booze you like."

Balthazar turned his glare on Dean, which was still a little rewarding, even after all these weeks, then tossed the liquor back anyway.

"You, Dean Winchester, are an ass."

Dean shrugged. "I've been called worse."

Balthazar smirked. "I'm sure."

Dean poured himself a shot and sat down across from Balthazar. "But, just out of curiosity, what'd I do this time?"

" _Nothing._ "

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific."

"Castiel, you halfwit."

Dean stared.

"He knows what you did. Why you did it. _How_ you did it."

Dean looked away, focusing on his drink and hating the heat rising in his cheeks. "What's your point?"

An extremely pained expression contorted Balthazar's smug face. "You know, I always had a rather low opinion of you, Dean. You genuinely amaze me with your perpetual lack of emotional awareness." Balthazar took another sip of his drink, clunking the glass down on the table for emphasis. " _He's in love with you._ "

"Don't be ridiculous," Dean replied, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest.

"Everything he's done over the past three years – it's been for you. He pulled you out of Hell. He rebelled against Heaven. He _died_ , and then he fell fighting a war so you wouldn't have to. You cannot be so blind that—"

"The fuck do you want me to do about it?" Dean fairly shouted, his insides twisting.

"Anything!" Balthazar shouted back. "Man up and talk to him. Make his sacrifices mean something."

.

Castiel often went into the yard to watch the sun rise, and it literally took Dean all night to work up the courage to follow him the morning after his argument with Balthazar. He found him on the easternmost edge of the yard, perched atop a mountain of crushed cars.

"The hell'd you get up there?" Dean called, trying – and probably failing – for nonchalance.

Castiel glanced down, a rare half-smile tugging at his lips. "I climbed the windows like a ladder."

Dean shrugged and set out to join Castiel. When he reached the top, however, he got a chunk of glass stuck in his palm for his efforts. Castiel reached down and helped pull him up on the hood of the topmost car, surprisingly strong, then scooted over so Dean could sit beside him.

"You're bleeding."

Castiel grabbed his hand before Dean even got a good look at the wound, and Dean tried without much success to focus on the pain, rather than the way Castiel's fingers felt on his skin. They were warm and gentle as they deftly removed the glass from his palm, and in a brief moment of insanity, he wondered what those fingers would feel like everywhere else.

Dean hissed through his teeth at the sting, then laughed nervously. "That's what I get for climbing around a junk yard like a twelve-year-old."

"You should be more careful," Cas concurred.

Dean didn't point out that Cas did the same thing every day.

Cas rested Dean's hand carefully on his thigh, which Dean was stridently _not_ thinking about, then ripped off the hem of his hand-me-down tee-shirt. With great care, Cas wrapped the strip of fabric snugly around Dean's palm.

"I do not believe you will require stitches for such a minor wound, but it would be prudent to thoroughly cleanse it when you return to the house."

Dean nodded and reluctantly removed his hand from Castiel's grasp. Cas drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his shins, his gaze focused on the rapidly lightening horizon. Dean couldn't take his eyes off the other man's profile, his features sharp and touched with gold from the few rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon. His eyes were bright and clear, and Dean suddenly found it difficult to breathe around the spike of panic he felt, because Cas was beautiful. Not in a cheap, Hollywood sort of way, but in a Sam-would-pay-to-see-it-in-a-museum sort of way.

And it wasn't even particularly his vessel, Dean thought, so much as the way that – even as a human – there was all this power and grace and _good_ bundled up tightly in one lithe form. Sure, his grace was gone, but Cas wasn't damaged, not like Dean thought he'd be. There were some things that threw him up (like the coffee pot), but it seemed that Castiel had pretty much taken the whole being human thing in stride. Dean thought that was beautiful, too, because every time life threw _him_ a curveball, he usually ended up on his ass, fighting to get back up. Cas landed on both feet, which was just extraordinary.

Dean actually thought lots of things were extraordinary about Cas, and realized, just as the sun crested the horizon, that he could spend quite a lot of time learning each and every one of them.

"Cas—" Dean said, the word choked and hoarse and totally involuntary, but Cas just held a finger to his lips, never taking his eyes off the sunrise.

"It is a new day, Dean," he said a few moments later. "Another chance to right the wrongs of the past. To say and do the things today where we fell short yesterday."

Dean swallowed. "How can you be so optimistic?"

Because Dean didn't usually get the chance to make up for his mistakes. His mistakes usually ended in blood and tears and funerals.

Cas shrugged, an elegant rise and fall of his shoulders. "I am alive. It is more than I could have hoped for just a few weeks ago." He looked at Dean. "When I was… with Raphael, my only prayer was that I'd get a chance to make amends."

"For what?" Dean said incredulously.

"For failing you," Castiel said bluntly.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I was so wrapped up in my own affairs, that I forgot the most important lesson you ever taught me."

"Yeah? Which one was that?"

"Family first. Without our loved ones, what are we?"

There was that goddamned word again.

"You were fighting a war, Cas," Dean argued, "so I wouldn't have to."

"You are correct. But what good would winning have done if I'd lost you in the end?"

"Hey, I'm still kicking."

"Yes," Cas said solemnly, "but your own guilt and self-loathing are far more perilous adversaries than any monster you may face. I fear one day they will consume you, and for my neglect, I am truly sorry."

Dean was officially uncomfortable now because this heart-to-heart shit was just _too much_. He and Cas – there wasn't usually a whole lot of talking between them. Epic staring contests, sure, but not so much with the sharing.

Dean laughed, partly to relieve his own anxiety, partly at the irony of the situation. Cas scowled, but Dean waved him off.

"I just think it's funny that I came out here to say pretty much the exact same thing." Cas cocked his head and waited for Dean to continue. "I'm a selfish bastard, and I should have been there for you. Maybe if I had, this wouldn't have happened."

Cas' eyes grew sad then, like Dean had gone and proven his point for him. Then he twisted around and gingerly laid a hand on Dean's shoulder, unwittingly fitting it over the scar he'd left when he'd dragged Dean out of hell. Or maybe he did it on purpose.

"You saved my life, Dean. I know what you did to do it, and I know what it cost you to make the admission."

"That's not the point—"

"I forgive you."

Then Cas kissed him, softly, like he thought Dean might throw himself off the mountain of cars to get away. It was a simple brushing of lips, nothing erotic, but it was honest and so damn _full_ , Dean didn't think he could move if he had a gun to his head. There was just too much – too much sensation, too much blood racing through his body, too much air in his lungs, too much _heart._ Cas pulled away, disappointment faintly crinkling his brow, but Dean pulled him back by the nape of his neck and kissed him properly, chasing down that small bit of peace he'd felt touching Cas.

Cas obliged with a happy sigh, and Dean thought maybe he could get used to this.

They separated, needing air, but Dean pressed their foreheads together, not really wanting Cas to be much farther away than he already was. Because Need and Love were pretty much the same things for Dean, and he realized he was just going to have to be okay with that.

"Cas, I—"

"Shh," Cas said, pressing his finger to Dean's lips. "I know. You don't have to say it."


End file.
